The Spanish Honor Society held a week-long food drive in Live Oak in a way to give back to the community. On Monday, Oct. 24, the group dropped off a paper bag in every resident’s door handle with a flier that explained the organization’s goal and told everyone the group would be back on Saturday, Oct. 29 to pick up the bags. 

The team from Jean Scott Homes led the project, which has become an annual service project for the SHS. Scott’s team provides all of the materials needed for SHS to do the manual labor. They also map off sections of the community and split SHS members into groups, telling them where they will drop off bags. 

“We are the manpower behind it,” SHS sponsor Yvette Rhode said. “It’s like a well-oiled machine.”

Scott arranges for a box truck to pick up the food after everyone has collected it. The food collected goes straight to HOPE Helps to restock their pantries in order to provide Seminole County residents with food for the holidays. 

“I’ve seen it go from almost empty to full shelves because of the people [helping],” Rhode said.

This is one of SHS’s biggest events of the year and happens twice a school year. The group goes through Live Oak in the fall, then the Sanctuary in the spring. 

“It’s kind of like a competition,” Rhode said. “Jean Scott puts out how many pounds of food versus the other one, trying to get a rivalry going between [the two communities].”

This year, there were 127 full bags of food collected. President Ariana Seguinot looks at the numbers each year, and is continually grateful for the support.

“I feel like every year we’re surprised by how much people actually donate,” Seguinot said. 

Since every honor society requires at least one service project a semester, every member of SHS was required to be a part of the drop off on Monday or pickup on Saturday for the food drive.

SHS plans on holding another service project in November called Operation Christmas Child.

“We participate in Operation Christmas Child where you decorate a shoe box and fill it with stuff and they send it to somebody that’s [in need],” Rhode said. 

SHS’s next meeting will be Nov. 17 in Rhode’s classroom 6-122.